Wednesday, December 24, 2008

The American Dream and the Power of Wealth or Fundamentals of Corporate Finance

The American Dream and the Power of Wealth

Author: Heather Beth Johnson

The American Dream and the Power of Wealth investigates the way that wealth (rather than income) structures educational opportunity in the United States. Furthermore, it shows the way that educational opportunity-the bedrock upon which our pervasive ideology of meritocracy or, in Johnson's terms, "the American Dream" is founded-structures the racial class system in the United States. She accomplishes this by analyzing an impressive store of qualitative and quantitative research on three cities: Boston, Los Angeles, and St. Louis.
The meritocratic ideology is riddled with contradictions due to the massive and growing wealth disparity between blacks and whites, in particular. Everyone wants the best for their children, but access to assets is what allows wealthy people to either send their children to private school or buy expensive homes in neighborhoods with good public schools. In this equation, income doesn't matter so much, but wealth-which is typically inherited-does. Not surprisingly, blackAmericans, who on average have far less wealth than white Americans, are often unable to attend the best schools. And since educational attainment is the root of our alleged meritocracy, whites disproportionately dominate it-and families with wealth, even when they recognize the meritocracy as a problem, don't opt out of the system that has successfully reproduced itself for decades. Essentially, the meritocratic ideology of the American Dream continues to cast a powerful spell, and people who stand to benefit will participate in it regardless of the social issues involved.



Table of Contents:
1The wealth gap and the American dream1
2Meritocracy and "good" schools19
3Buying in and opting out53
4Making do and feeling stuck79
5Wealth privilege101
6Inequality and ideology129
7An unresolved conflict157
AppMethodology175

New interesting textbook:

Fundamentals of Corporate Finance

Author: Stephen A Ross

The best-selling Fundamentals of Corporate Finance (FCF) is written with one strongly held principle– that corporate finance should be developed and taught in terms of a few integrated, powerful ideas. As such, there are three basic themes that are the central focus of the book: 1) An emphasis on intuition—underlying ideas are discussed in general terms and then by way of examples that illustrate in more concrete terms how a financial manager might proceed in a given situation. 2) A unified valuation approach—net present value (NPV) is treated as the basic concept underlying corporate finance. Every subject covered is firmly rooted in valuation, and care is taken to explain how particular decisions have valuation effects. 3) A managerial focus—the authors emphasize the role of the financial manager as decision maker, and they stress the need for managerial input and judgment.

The Eighth Edition continues the tradition of excellence that has earned Fundamentals of Corporate Finance its status as market leader. Every chapter has been updated to provide the most current examples that reflect corporate finance in today’s world. The supplements package has also been updated and improved. From a new computerized test bank that is easier than ever to use, to new narrated PowerPoint for students, to new interactive learning modules, student and instructor support has never been stronger. There is also an optional, exciting new web-based program called "McGraw-Hill’s Homework Manager" that will help your students learn corporate finance by duplicating problems from each chapter in the textbook and by providing automatic grading andfeedback to both students and instructors.



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